MIT researchers working on super-fast robotic muscles

Someday, when we're toiling away in the silicon mines at the behest of our robot overlords (or brewing beer and
rolling stogies, if the bots are fueled like Bender), we'll look back on posts like this and wonder why we made such a
big deal about all these advances in robotics. Anyway, now that robots are already
smarter,
stronger, and
more attractive than us, it stands to reason that they
will soon be super-quick as well. An MIT research group under the guidance of Professor Sidney Yip has taken a first
step towards building bots that move with the Matrix-quickness with their development of robotic muscles that work 1000
times faster than the human equivalent. While current gen bots can only muster muscle speeds 1/100 as fast as humans',
Yip's group has designed artificial "muscles" made from conjugated polymers (meaning that they're conductive, not
insulating) that react very quickly when exposed to solitons (charge density waves). So now that robots have mastered
pool,
soccer, and
foosball, it looks like swimming, cycling, and track will
be the next sports conquered in the bots' ultimate quest for world (and Olympic) domination.